Two days a week adjunct professor Courtney Marse teaches mass communication and graphic design courses. But outside the classroom, she is a bona fide fashion designer.
Marse uses her background in graphic design to engineer digital textile prints for her women’s clothing brand. Her Courtney Marse brand clothing has been showcased on the runway in several fashion shows.
Marse said she did not intend to work in the fashion world. After graduating from the University with a degree in mass communication in 2008, she started her own business designing paper goods and other two-dimensional products.
Dissatisfied with creating her client’s vision and not her own, she decided to go back to graduate school to figure out what she wanted to create.
Marse found her answer during an internship at fashion brand Tibi in New York City, where she observed designers engineering prints.
“I never set my sights on being in the fashion world. It was just finding out what I make,” Marse said. “What they were doing there was the same as what I was doing with these crazy designs.”
Marse said she begins with an idea, usually a story or a character. She paints or sketches the idea on paper, then cuts up the design to create a module. By repeating the module and layering other parts of the original design, she creates a pattern that she applies to textiles. From the textiles, she makes dresses, tops, skirts and shorts.
She began creating her own graphic designs for textiles and presented them for her senior thesis. Since graduating from the University with a master’s degree in fine arts and a focus in graphic design in 2011, she has showcased her designs in Southern Design Week and Uncommon Thread Wearable Art Show.
“It’s still funny to me to be called a fashion designer, but I fully embrace it,” Marse said.
Her designer status does not hinder her participation at the University. Marse is working on a collaboration with the School of Art and Design and the School of Music.
The collaboration will use the skills of both schools to create a dance show to take place in April.
Graphics will move in coordination with the dancers’ choreography. Marse said the graphic elements are extremely complex, and it will be a learning experience for her.
Inside the classroom, students appreciate Marse’s sense of professionalism. Graphic design sophomore Ann Champagne takes Marse’s digital art course. Champagne likes to see that her professor works outside of the classroom.
“I like how she is driven and how accomplished she is,” Champagne said. “It was cool to see her own designs.”
Marse advises her students to be open-minded when thinking about their careers.
“Go ahead and plan something, but everything is probably going to evolve and change, and you will end up somewhere you never even realized,” Marse said.